Stratosphere Project

[gaben]

Hy Folks!

Since january of 2011 we started a project and now time has come to publish it.

We going to send a FPV airplane to the stratosphere with a weather baloon up to 30km of height.After separation from the baloon we will fly that plane back to the starting point.

More than half a year went by with the development and testing of the onboard and ground equipment.
We had to make all of the components withstand the extreme weather conditions such as low temperatures of -60C and the extreme low air pressure.

http://www.sztratoszferaproject.hu/en

This site is under uploading lots of staff about the mission.

We would like to thank to FPVLAB (official sponsor) supporting us to get this mission to success.

[gaben]

Here couple videos they are not uploaded yet to our site.

Servo test at -74C

View this video on Vimeo


View this video on Vimeo

Onboard electronics ground test.


View this video on Vimeo

[gaben]

Within two weeks theres gonna be the first real test.
A real airplane will carry our plane up to 4000 meters and will simply will trown out.
Groundstation one will fly the plane back to the starting point,Groundstation two at 60 kilometers away will check the quality of video reception.
If this test goes down with succes,there is one more test will be with the weather baloon at 9000 meters.

[gaben]

I wil try to describe more about tis mission day by day,but its so complex I might miss something out.
So if any questions go ahead try to catch me

[gaben]

This was the inspiring video


View this video on YouTube

[Vitamin J]

I'll be watching your progress every step of the way! This is going to make such an awesome video and I'm sure it's going to be unforgettable for your team.

How are you planning on descending? Will you just point it straight down and go or will you try and gain some speed before leveling off and trying to glide around? I'd love to build a U2 style glider with massive wings and lightweight and spend an hour or two coming down.

There is also a good chance that you will shatter whatever the RC speed record there is and break the sound barrier!

I'm sure you've probably seen Joe Kittenger's jump from 102,800 feet, but here it is for others:


View this video on YouTube

He broke the sound barrier in free-fall

[gaben]

I'll be watching your progress every step of the way! This is going to make such an awesome video and I'm sure it's going to be unforgettable for your team.

How are you planning on descending? Will you just point it straight down and go or will you try and gain some speed before leveling off and trying to glide around? I'd love to build a U2 style glider with massive wings and lightweight and spend an hour or two coming down.

There is also a good chance that you will shatter whatever the RC speed record there is and break the sound barrier!

The descend:After disconecting from the baloon Ill try to guide the plane to freefall /nose down/and at the same time with a little pulled elevator.
Soon the plane will respond,I will try to make it glide.At the freefall the plane will reach the speed about 800km/h.The gliding speed will close to 400km/h.
Some of You will ask ......isnt that will fall apart?
No. The reason is because a such a low air density makes to reach a such high speeds.But the forces to the plane will be the same like to close to the ground flying.
Only thing we have to avoid.The spin during the fall.If the plane will spin the high centifugal forces will damage the airplane.

And yes I seen every related video
Even RED Bull is ready to brake Kittingers record,but they are in a lawsuit with a founder of that project....

[TallyHoe]

Interesting

What part of the world will you be doing this I wonder?

If it's in our part of the world I'd love to try and receive the downlink video as it happens.

[gaben]

It will be in Hungary Europe.
But anyways if You want to see it LIVE ,it will be broadcasted online in 3 frames.Groundstation,Recevied signal from the plane,Telemetry displayed in Google Earth

[gaben]

Let me introduce the On Screen Display first.
This is a custom made OSD to serve our needs no more no less.
In this case simplicity is an advance,but its more complicated then some plug and play staff.





Ill try to describe all the functions....
It can display 5 temperature readings 1 outside and 4 inside .
The reason to monitor all major electric unit such as battery,video transmitters,inside air... because in a height like the plane goes the air is so thin,aircooling is not effitient way to keep electric units in a friendly temperature.

Barometric pressure based height calculation.This reading dissapears soon the plane reaches the 15000 meter height,and only just a GPS based height mesurement can be seen.Under the above height both measurement displays.

Gps based masurements:Heading Compass,Distance to home,Home orientation,Height,Speed,Groundstation antenna directions
Gps chipset is a special order, it can be used in height up to 33000meters.
Commercial GPS is limited to height and speed to avoid anyone to build intercontinental ballistic rockets.

Telemetric service:Telemetric comes down at a sound ,and the recevied data can be displayed in Google Earth.Location and Speed in a separate window.
The Air Traffic control aked us to do this option, in case they have to keep the airspace clear for us.They also asked us not to spend too much time between 13000m and 9000meters where the commercial air traffic happens.

There are some usuall functions such as :elapsed time,battery voltage, current power consumption,burned milliamps,toggle between wiews/all data,navy data only,speed and height only/

Parashute controll:There is a safety shoot onboard if anything unexpected happens,like high wind driftes the plane and there is no way to glide back,because
NO PROPULSION INVOLVED WITH TIS FLIGHT.
The parashute can be opened manually with toggeling a switch more then 10 seconds,or in case loss of controll more then 30 seconds /in this case the shoot opens only if the plane below 3000 meters/ to avoid exeptional drifting with the open parashute.

Logging:There is an sd card logger inside also to study all data after the plane comes back.
RSSI:Recevier Signal Strenght calibrated to Tomas Scherrer LRS

In case the video is out the OSD still working with a black screen.

I think all OSD functions are described